Title - Book AC, travel by sleeper coach!

Kochi: Commuters with AC second class tickets travelling on the Mumbai-bound Netravati Express were in for a surprise on Tuesday after they were allotted sleeper coaches.

Similar incidents are likely to crop up in the coming days, thanks to a new directive of the  Thiruvananthapuram Division which says that coaches meant for one particular train are not to be used in another.

A top railway official said: “Till this day, we’d been ‘adjusting’ coaches. For example, if an AC coach suddenly developed a technical snag, we used to replace it with the AC coach of another train which had pulled in and was not scheduled to leave immediately. But a new order issued on Monday restricts such adjustments”.

For instance, the second tier AC coach (A1) of Trivandrum-Lokmanya Tilak (T No 16346) developed technical snags on Tuesday and there was no spare coach available. “There was only a spare sleeper coach available and we attached it”, the official said.

Commuters from Thiruvananthapuram and Ernakulam were surprised when they were asked to board the sleeper coach though they had with them two-tier AC tickets.

“I booked the AC coach as my 72-year-old father was not well and could not bear the heat. Ideally they should have informed us much earlier. Though I contacted the station master, he assured us that the extra ticket charge would be refunded”, said Peethambaran, a commuter.